


Thrifting

by immortalvessel



Category: Original Work, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Betrayal, Catharsis, Dubious Consent, Extended Metaphors, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intoxication, Lesbian Relationship, Lesbian Sex, Manipulation, Poetry, Regret, Self-Reflection, Toxic Relationship, Toxic same-sex relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalvessel/pseuds/immortalvessel
Summary: I still wonder,How she chose her victims.Why did she pick that wineglass? That plate? That pitcher?It was never random.She liked to take her time evaluating our stash.She’d pick something up.Weigh it.Flip it over in her hands a few times,Before grimacing and placing it back down.Until finally she’d lift one up and say,“I bet that will break nicely.”
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	Thrifting

**Author's Note:**

> TW: There is an implied non-con scene, but it's all very metaphorical.
> 
> If you're not sure what you're in for yet, this is basically a poem about a toxic, same-sex relationship. It's loosely inspired by Catradora but I left the names pretty vague.

We raided a thrift store, her and I.

Two unlikely partners in crime.

Her in a pink floral button up from Vegas,

And me in a black tank top from Target.

Drunk on each other’s company,

We stumbled through the front door.

The chime of a bell to sound our arrival, 

Quickly drowned, 

By the clatter of her elbow,

Knocking into a vase.

With an apologetic nod to the clerk,

And a smirk to me,

She grabbed my hand,

And dragged me to the back of the store.

There was no rush, but she hurried anyway,

Bumping the other patrons as we passed.

Startled in their search for second-hand treasures,

They watched us go,

And then quickly looked away when they realized,

We were two women, hands intertwined. 

As if two people couldn’t stand out more, 

We loaded our cart with the ugliest dishware we could find. 

Plaid plates and yellowing mugs.

Fat pitchers and chipped saucers.

I held up a particularly ugly coffee cup. 

She eyed the happy snowman and groaned. 

“That’s horrific” she said. “Throw it in.” 

Something else caught my eye, and I held it up. 

A porcelain bell,

Embellished with silver,

And hand-painted with evergreen trees. 

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. 

“It is,” she said. “Throw it in.” 

We hauled our cargo to the front desk. 

Two lesbians with enough tacky dishware,

To host a dinner party for twelve. 

As we stood in line,

She wrapped an arm around my waist, 

And whispered in my ear. 

“Wait here.” 

Disappearing behind the racks of overflow clothing,

She came back holding a cane. 

I raised an eyebrow, but she just smiled,

And placed it on the top of our pile.

A red plate with a Christmas tree. 

The clerk blinked. “....Will that be all?”

We loaded the items into my blue SUV, 

And drove to an orchard just outside the city limits. 

With trees and sunlight obscuring my vision,

I almost missed the turn. 

I slammed on the brakes, and in doing so,

Caused a cacophony of clinking and clattering from the back of the car.

Joined by the crescendo of a horn,

As a driver swerved around me,

And our laughter to complete the fanfare, 

I pulled into the parking lot of a Baptist church, 

Empty on a Saturday.

Glass doesn’t always break how you'd expect it to.

Sometimes you throw it down on the asphalt,

And it shoots back up at you like a fountain geyser. 

Other times, you throw it down, and it shatters outward, 

Pieces flying east and west,

As if repelled from each other magnetically. 

A delicate wine glass doesn’t always shatter. 

Sometimes it thuds on the ground, 

The stem splitting cleanly down the middle,

While the head rolls away intact.

A ceramic mug doesn't always crumble. 

Sometimes it erupts into a powdery cloud,

The small fragments biting into your skin,

Like specks of sand in a gust of wind. 

That’s half the fun of it. 

The unpredictability. The chaos. The pain. 

I still wonder,

How she chose her victims. 

Why did she pick that wineglass? That plate? That pitcher?

It was never random. 

She liked to take her time evaluating our stash. 

She’d pick something up.

Weigh it.

Flip it over in her hands a few times,

Before grimacing and placing it back down. 

Until finally she’d lift one up and say,

“I bet that will break nicely.” 

It never struck me as weird, 

How much she loved to break things. 

Sometimes she’d walk right by the assorted glassware on the pavement, 

And haul me up into her arms instead. 

Maybe it made her feel powerful,

To pick up a woman who almost cleared 6 feet. 

It made me feel like I was grappling at the edge of a cliff.

I knew that without those arms tightly circling my waist,

I would fall. 

And if I did, 

I’d land in a sea of broken glass. 

When she placed me back on the ground,

My heart swooped in my chest,

As my center of gravity reoriented. 

She didn’t let me go though. 

She kept her hands firmly planted on my hips. 

“Hey before we go, do you want to break the bell?”

I asked, breathless. 

“I bet it makes a cool sound when it breaks.”

“No," she said.

“I’m saving that one for later.” 

Glass must be handled carefully. 

But some things are too fragile, even to touch.

Like porcelain sculptures.

The tiniest pressure can snap a finger right off.

Even worse are the delicate eyelashes. 

The dainty strands of hair. 

She knew not to touch. 

I knew she liked to break the rules. 

And rules are best broken, 

After too much champagne. 

The cork flew off the bottle,

And hit the wall with a bang. 

The champagne bubbled over into my hands. 

Liquid as warm as blood in her hot apartment. 

It seeped into my skin, 

Drenching my neck, my thighs,

My chest, my sides.

Before I knew it,

I was drowning. 

The bottle slipped from my hands,

But it didn’t break. 

It bounced off the tile floor with a thud,

And rolled away unscathed. 

The floor, however,

Fractured into a million pieces. 

I felt gravity wrap its hook around my ankles and yank,

But I didn’t fall.

Not yet. 

Before I could fall,

She grabbed me by the hair, 

And pulling me close,

Whispered in my ear, 

“I wish you the best, beautiful."

"You know that, right?” 

Then she let go. 

When a bell breaks, there's no musical ending. 

No beautiful chime as it shatters. 

No haunting melody to send it away. 

It’s not like when they drop a piano off a building. 

And as the strings snap,

The sound reverberates off them one more time.

One last cry of anguish,

88 pitches screaming their final scream,

Until the sound is swallowed,

By splintering wood.

When a bell breaks, it’s quite boring really.

It's small enough to fit in your hand, like a baseball. 

So you take a pitcher's stance,

And you swing, 

And as you wait for your bounty to hit the ground, 

If you were to close your eyes, 

All you would hear, 

Is a sharp crack.

Like a ball, hitting a bat. 

If you use your imagination,

It could be any other dusty wine glass,

Decapitated on the asphalt. 

Or the Christmas plate, perhaps, 

Plucked from the bottom shelf of a thrift store,

Now reduced to blood red remains,

On its own hallowed ground. 

But eventually,

You have to open your eyes,

And see the porcelain fragments,

Like white gashes carved into the ground.

And as you sweep them away,

With a crunch and a scrape,

You would never have known

They used to make the most beautiful sound.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone actually read this far, then damn thank you.


End file.
